


Anywhere I Lay My Head

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-29
Updated: 2011-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Problem Sleuth, and you're waiting for the Midnight Crew to play. It might be the last time you see them, because last night you did something real stupid, and you're just waiting for Spades Slick to tell you he never wants to see you again. You are miserable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anywhere I Lay My Head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gimcrackArchaeologist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimcrackArchaeologist/gifts).



> I guest-filled one of lucky-spike's prompts on tumblr, for the Crew playing Tom Waits' "Anywhere I Lay My Head" and Problem Sleuth bein melancholic and watching.

You don't even know why you showed up tonight. Maybe you've just got nowhere else to be. Maybe it's that you still can't get a decent glass of anything anywhere else in this city. Or maybe you'll be honest with yourself for once in your goddamn life and say that no matter what he told you, you want to see him again.

Nope, you're good with lying to yourself. You take another sip and let the whiskey burn out whatever part of you wants to drag your sorry carcass over to him and apologise. You're just fine here. You fool yourself on that one for about half an hour before the Midnight Crew walk out on stage and your heart takes up residence in your throat in the space of a second.

Coming to the Lounge and expecting to see the Midnight Crew is sort of a losing proposition most days. And seeing them play is even less common. They don't do it for anybody but themselves. They put some hacks up on stage and they play just fine most nights, but then unpredictably, the Midnight Crew will hustle them back off again and take the stage, and nobody can tell for how long they'll be there. The Midnight Crew operates on the whims of Spades Slick; the band plays as long as he's willing to do it. If he feels like the audience doesn't appreciate them or if they get too into it, Slick'll just up and leave.

It's his music, and he doesn't want anybody else to get the wrong impression about that. For awhile you sort of started to think maybe it was yours, too, but then you fucked everything up and you'll be lucky if he doesn't get Boxcars to carry you bodily into the alleyway and toss you in the dumpster.

You think you'd prefer that. You'd prefer it if Slick just beat the shit out of you and things went back to the way they'd sort of turned out after the two of you stopped trying to kill each other on a regular basis and made up for it with, well, making up for it. You'd like that instead of this empty grey waiting time where you don't know where you stand. Well, of course, it's your own damn fault for saying it at all, but all the same you'd prefer hell to purgatory. You never did like waiting rooms.

Slick grabs the microphone from the singer, who falls into frightened silence as the rest of the band catches up with him. The audience starts applauding already; the guys onstage were okay, but they weren't _the Midnight Crew_ , after all. He glares out at the clapping people and snarls. "Don't get excited," he growls, "we're only playing one song." The clapping dies down, but only a little.

He didn't look at you, maybe he doesn't know you're here. Or maybe the song is going to be a bitter revelation of all your huge failings and it'll point you out and a spotlight'll come on right over your head and then for the rest of your life everybody in this club is going to know that you adopt every cat you see and you keep a crappy romance novel in your desk drawer.

You feel sick. You probably just drank too much, and the anxiety isn't from Spades Slick rearranging the stage twenty feet away from where you're sitting the night after you told him you loved him and he kicked you out of the house.

Don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up.

The Crew lines up behind Slick. Droog cradles his sax, Deuce has his oboe, and Hearts waits beside them with the double bass. Slick grips the microphone in hand and you can see his teeth grit together. His eyes are dark and sleepless and his clothes are only passable because they're all black. He opens his mouth and Droog and Deuce come in the second before he begins to sing. It's a low note, not the big hit they like to start with most times you've seen them. It's soft. Reminds you of church, weird when you're surrounded by booze and lowlifes as you are, but then Slick's voice hits you and the rest of your brain shuts off.

It's rough and ratted and you can hear the smokes in his voice. Slick doesn't smoke, except when shit hits the fan. You can see the outline of the pack in his breast pocket. He sings, though, he sings and your heart forgets what it was supposed to be doing. It blossoms in your chest like it was cut open, and blood surges through your stagnant veins and lights you on fire inside. This was why you told him in the first place. Because of this feeling, except maybe without the part where you feel like you're getting consumed from the inside out just hearing his voice.

The oboe and sax are a hymn behind him, and he butchers a beautiful song with his ruined voice. Somehow it makes it more beautiful, but you don't know how that works. Words pass your ears like birds and for the longest time, you don't even know what he's saying. You should be treasuring this, saving it up for rainy days alone, because after this, you might have a whole lot of them coming. But you can't; the thrill of just being near him, of hearing him sing, of looking at the way his hair falls and the sharp line of his nose and cheekbones, that blocks anything else out.

When you realize tears are streaming down your face, your mouth is hanging just open, is the first time your brain works out the words. "Now the clouds have covered over," he sings, "And the wind is blowing cold. I don't need anybody, because I learned to be alone. And anywhere I lay my head, boys, I will call my home."

There is a brief pause, a beautiful silence in the middle of the words that hurt the most, and you stand up. Your hat is tipped back and as you turn around, the room can see your face and the splattering of tears across your shirt. They can see your eyes, feeling like they're burning themselves out of your head. You don't care. This is worse than Slick telling the world what was wrong with you. You can't stand the thought of him making something beautiful you can't have.

The music hits again, Slick on the piano this time and Boxcars' bass coming in, an upbeat and painfully sweet after Slick's voice like milk and sugar after black coffee. You walk through the audience a ruined man, and you open the door to the night.

You can hear the ringing sound of the microphone hitting something, and you turn to see the lead singer of the last band catching it on the shoulder. Slick leaps off the stage and the Midnight Crew still plays, and he follows your path through the customers and shoves them out of the way, until he's in front of you, skinny and short and breathless. And demanding. "Where d'you think you're going?" he says.

You're talking to him. You want to be taking it back, you want to be apologizing, even as you want to tell him again; you want to pull him to you and make him understand. But, "Dunno," you say.

"Don't," he says, his voice low.

"You want me to stay?" you ask, and Slick looks dodgy. "Yeah," he says, at last. "Yeah. Yeah. I want you to stay." He pulls the door closed, and you out of the night.

"But I thought," you say, "the song. Didn't you want..." you trail off, fumbling words uselessly.

Slick is pulling you back through the crowd, past the bar to the door to the back. He holds it open, hand splayed against it. "You even listen to that?" he asks. "Anywhere, stupid. Wherever..." he pulls you into the back hall, lets the door swing free, and is flat against you, mouth grasping yours, before it's halfway closed.

When you disengage in search of air, he finishes his sentence. "You know," he says breathlessly. "Anywhere you are."


End file.
